It had become so easy, or so I thought, for me to determine the source of a song as soon as I heard it on the radio. Within the 1st 5 seconds I could tell where a song comes from and I'd usually classify it as Local, African, American, British or European. So in the 1st 5 seconds I heard Jimmy Nevis's Heartboxing and Elephant Shoes I said to myself "American". Foolishly ignorant to my mistake, months passed by and imagine my suprise when I spot "Jimmy Nevis featuring Kwesta" on my twitter timeline. Only then do I do my research and find out the talented musician's a Captonian and only 20 years old.
I suppose this article is both to give praise and also give my apologies to Jimmy. Am I saying this level of music is expected from international musicians and not South African ones? Am I complimenting his music or showing my subconscious disrespect for our local music industry? Maybe I'm just telling myself to wake up rather. More and more of our local musicians are breaking the stereotype of "local" music. We see it with Toya De Lazy and bands like ISO, AKA, Zebra and Giraffe and The Graham Watkins Project. They're finally proving that we should not just support music cause it's local, but because it's good quality music. We have the talent and the maturity to carry that talent through to the music now.
Back to Jimmy, the music is not only high quality but it's creative, unique and the lyrics are smart. I'm impressed and look forward to hearing some more.
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